1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to electronic or video games which share information across a network. Aspects of the invention relate to remotely activating sounds on a video game and displaying an identification indicia such as a name next to a player""s indicia.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring briefly to FIG. 1, there is shown one type of tournament system, referred to as a high score to date system, in which players do not compete interactively with each other. One system of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,083,271 to Thacher et al., wherein all players competing in a tournament play their games individually and when finished transmit their scores to a central server. Thus, in this system, each individual game unit 16 is linked via a modem 26 to a cooperating modem 28 of a central server 29. This central server 29 then receives individual scores, one at a time from a number of game units 16 which are sequentially interconnected with its modem 28, for example by polling of the various game unit modems 26 by the server 29 in some preselected sequence. While a given game unit 16 is being polled by the server 29, information may be exchanged between the server and the game unit to indicate to the player scores of other players participating in the tournament who have completed games to date, such that the individual player may compare his score with other scores of games completed to date. Hence, the name usually given to such a system, xe2x80x9chigh score to date.xe2x80x9d
FIG. 2 shows another system in which a server 39 facilitates interconnection for interactive play between only two game units 16, each of which has a modem 26. The server 39 may also include a modem (not shown) for communicating with the individual game unit modems 26. The process is a three step process as indicated by arrows 1, 2 and 3 in FIG. 2. In the first step, the two modems 26 from the two game units 16 address the server either simultaneously or sequentially and indicate their availability for linked play. In the second step, the server indicates to the first player making such a request the availability of the second player and transmits the telephone number or the email address of the second player. If interested in engaging the second player, the first player, as indicated in step 3, contacts the second player by using this telephone or email address, and play commences directly between the two players. The server 39 is not involved during the actual play between the two players, but only facilitates the task of initially locating another player.
The systems shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 have a number of limitations. For example, the system of FIG. 2 cannot be used to link more than two players for interactive play, and cannot be utilized to facilitate tournament play as with the system of FIG. 1. On the other hand, the high score to date tournament system of FIG. 1 is not capable of supporting real time interactive play among the various players, but can only compare scores and transmit the resulting scoring information to the individual players.
Other prior art systems had the ability to display player""s names to each player within a networked video game unit environment. However, these games had severe limitations that constrained the advantages of the name display. For example, in one system, each player""s name was shown on the side of a racing car. Thus, if one player approached another player from the rear, neither player could see the other player""s name. It was only when one car turned to the side that the player""s name was shown.
In another prior art system, the name of each player was displayed on the rear portion of his car. However, as the car moved forward into the distance and became smaller, the name of the player was reduced accordingly. Thus, once the car was far in the distance, the name of the player could not be read. Thus, a need exists for a system of displaying player""s names in an interconnected video game network that does not suffer from the disadvantages of prior systems.
A method and system are described for sending information across a video game unit network. The invention includes systems and methods for remotely activating sounds on a game unit, such as an arcade game. The invention also includes systems and methods of displaying a player""s name next to his indicia in a video game.
Embodiments of the present invention relate to game units, and game unit networks that transmit sounds from one game unit on the network to other game units on the network. In one embodiment, each game unit is a video game such as a car driving game. In one embodiment, a state table is stored within the car driving game that stores aspects of each player""s car.